Five Seconds Off
by xcorkx
Summary: The last thing Admiral Kirkland was to be stranded on a war-torn planet with his clueless hot novice pilot and his psychopathic bloodthirsty doctor. Someone up there must really hate him.
1. Crash and Burn

**Author's Note: So Cork here, haven't had the time to really sit down and write a fanfic in about forever. Or I had the time but I found that writing my original stories. So without further ado I present to you the latest story! (I may want to warn you, simply out of my schedule I doubt this will be updated very often. Most likely once a week or every other week.)**

Alfred grinned pushing the ship to its limits. The sounds of his superior screaming at him, clinging to the wall for dear life were probably the best part about his job.

"What was that Boss? I can't hear you over the engine!" He said as the engine began to spark.

"Bloody hell! Just slow down we're not even in battle!" One British-accented Admiral Arthur Kirkland screamed before running up to Alfred, forcing him to slow down until they were peacefully sailing along.

"What was that for? I was having fun!" Alfred pouted.

"Have some fun another w-" He cut himself off feeling a hand grab his rear. "I don't mean like that you git!" He screamed even louder slamming his foot into Alfred's shin. Arthur proceeded to pry the hand of and went out of the room. "I don't want this thing going any faster! Save the fuel for once or I'll put you in the infirmary."

Normally this wouldn't have frightened anyone, but this ship was an exception. The last person to go in with a broken appendage came out having post traumatic stress disorder moments simply from the bedside manner. Although there was nothing less to expect from him, Arthur knew it when he first met him seeing the off-kilter smile and hearing 'I hope to see you all often' in the first thirty seconds.

A terrified scream came from the infirmary. Arthur sighed and stormed off to see when the 'good' doctor, as Alfred had taken to calling him, had done this time. He carefully opened the door to see him smiling at a terrified brunette.

"Come now Toris, don't you want to help me test the new-"

"Doctor, there's no need to test anything," Arthur snapped, standing just outside the doorway, always too afraid to go into the room while there was needle or really anything other than food in hand. A chill ran down his hand when the tallest man turned and smiled at him. "We… we aren't in need of anything that is in that vial or yours anyways." He looked stared back at the now confused doctor.

"…One day you may be, da." He said a bit of disappointment showing in his eyes.

"Ivan just let Toris go. That's an order." He barked and Ivan's smile had faded the tiniest bit, while he set the needle and vial down. Toris stood up agonizingly slowly in case him moving any faster would upset Ivan, and be the death of him.

"Hey Boss! Think we got a stowaway or somethin'! Do you think I could eat –" Arthur closed his eyes, blocking out the nonsensical blabbering spewing from the pilots mouth to the P.A system and into everyone's ears. Including said stowaway….

"Wait! That was smart." Arthur thought to himself, completely surprised to say the least. He ran up the stairs, and soon found Alfred leaning back in his chair casually talking into the intercom microphone, swiveling his chair from side to side. "Alfred, stop!"

"Oh…. Hey!" He grinned setting it down, spinning around three times before finally facing Arthur. "So do you think I could eat so-"

"The stowaway is more important than your bloody appetite! Now where exactly did you see them?!" He screamed, face turning red with anger. He stared at the young blonde look thoughtful for a moment and then gasp.

"Oh yeah! Him, he's in the engine room! So about me eating- Hey where are you going?!" He shouted watching Arthur walk over to a door and open in with more force than necessary. Both staring confused at a boy open up the engine, looking inside, goggles covering his eyes, Arthur stepped into the room.

"Oh, hi Admiral," The stranger said turning around his voice was barely heard over the loud sparking and whirring of the engine. "I can fix the problem when we land next."

"Who are you?" Alfred and Arthur asked at the same time.

"Matthew. You hired me… Alfred I'm your brother!" He said looking more than hurt while Alfred laughed.

"Dude, I think I'd know if I had a brother, seriously," Alfred interjected in between fits of laughter. Earning a glare that shouted, shut up before I make you, from the Admiral. "What you don't think I would…. If you had a brother working in the same 30 yards as you don't you think you'd know?"

"Just run a bloody search to see if we have a Matthew listed to be on the ship would you?" An exasperated Arthur snapped, looking at Alfred with another glare. Getting a grumble in return and the satisfying sounds of keys clacking away.

"Well, you hired him, I think. He's listed at least…. Oh my god he is my brother!" Alfred shouted, absolutely astonished. Arthur rolled his eyes and turned around, raising an eyebrow.

"'I think I'd know if I had a brother', he says. Well Alfred I'm making him your responsibility. Fancy that?" Arthur asked a smile on his face. "Now Matthew I leave you in the… hopefully capable hands of your brother."

"So Boss can I eat up here?" Alfred shouted, like as if he said his request loud enough, it wouldn't be cut off like the last ones. "Cause I bought something at the last port and I figured ya wouldn't mind me eating it on board since we're taking a stop tomorrow that it'd be-"

"No, no! You remember the unfortunate landing accident?" Matthew's eyes grew wide when the admiral brought up the scariest day of his life. Now he stayed holed up in the engine room in case something like an inadequately fastened screw happened to give way again. He subconsciously reached for his eyebrow which had nearly been burned off and took a deep breath, containing himself.

"Oh come on! One time soda sticks in the gear shift and you won't get off my back about it. It's not like I killed someone," Alfred said and looked to his superior before adding. "I didn't say nearly…. Okay how about this, I eat it with you in the room!"

"No. I tell you no every time you ask and yet you still don't get it. Why do you think that is? Are your brains made of hamburgers?" Instantly the statement was regretted when the pilot smiled and said I wish with grin on his face that could only be used for the purpose of childish fantasies.

"Wouldn't that be awesome?! I really wish that was true now," Alfred jumped forward when an open palm made contact with the back of his head. "What the hell!? I didn't do anything this time." He complained, sitting upright.

"Except miss almost miss the port. Go! Now! And sit correctly in your chair would you?! You'll end up flying into the windshield at this rate."

"Mother hen much?" Alfred said and rolled his eyes and begrudgingly stood up and sat back down, strapping himself into the chair. "Well get ready to land cause it's comin' up!" He said into the P.A system along with a chain of whoops and what one could call war cries until another smack was administered. "Hey! That hurts! Same spot and everything…" He trailed off and muttered before focusing back onto the planet ahead of him.

Arthur meanwhile stomped down the stairs, making sure anything of any form of value was safely tucked away. He looked into the infirmary and saw Toris and Ivan putting anything that had glass surrounding it.

Walking up to the kitchen he thrust his head in and saw anything sharp and pointy being put away and checking things off, as it was the standard procedure since the large doctor had seemingly taken the larger knives to use in another one of his 'experiments' that Toris still had not quite gotten over.

"So… uh…. We're gonna have an… interesting landing. Uh…. You see we have a bit of a problem. It uh… seems that theenginecaughtfireagainsodon''tknowwhy." He said forcing the last sentence out as fast as he could.

"What did he say, aru?" The cook said, looking over at Arthur who looked like he was about to throttle the next person to say something that even mildly displeased him.

"Not sure, though I'd strap yourself to chair. The fool must have done something wrong." He said looking out the window as the world below started to come closer at breakneck speeds. The least he could do was pray to God that he wouldn't die this time.


	2. The Fall

**A/N ****So I'm back, and if you're wondering what took me so damn long. Les Miserables. I was in the show and it ate up all my time. Then I was supposed to go to France (which would have made my life!) but the volcano blew its top so that didn't happen, I'm going in June though so it's not a total loss. So anyways, I really didn't have much time for this though I did work at it. In notebooks, my word processor is acting screwy as per usual. That's my lame excuse, so anyways. Here it is. Chapter two, half of this was written in a bright yellow spiral note book amongst other future endeavors but you my lucky readers get this first! Also, this chapter is inexplicably short just so I get it out to you, so sorry and not so sorry at the same time. Rant over. Cork, out.**

Alfred felt a few things during the landing process. The first; something snapped like a chicken bone. It was either in him... or the controls, at that point he couldn't tell. The second was the back of his head colliding with the top of his head rest. Now, he was seeing stars. Rubbing his eyes he tried to force them away, all while keeping his glasses on his face.

He panicked, mind racing. Maybe his boss was right. Maybe he could, no would, kill them all. And this would be the day that not only did his career go to the dogs but his life was thrown away as well; that more than anything else in life scared him to the bone. As the thoughts kept surfacing he felt his stomach lurch forward, almost threatening him to keep focus the longer the ship fell.

"Matthew! Try to keep us from... well exploding!" He shouted, he could feel his knuckles turn white through the leather gloves along with his face as he stared at the ground which was rising at a more than alarming rate to greet them.

"Hello, this is the pilot speaking.... uh.... I'd like to point out to you lucky passengers of flight D362I that on the left you can see uh.... the beautiful lakes of this wonderful place and uh... on the right. Well some like to call it our near certain death, but uh.... you can call it the wing that's on fire. The seatbelt signal has been activated so sit your asses down and uh... don't move a bit. We'd like to thank you for making the stupid choice of choosing me as your pilot. Have a nice day!" He ended cheerfully, though none of it showed on his face. Directing his attention back to the tree tops which no longer looked like broccoli that he refused to eat the night before, no in fact now they look much more threatening, and large.

"Alfred! It's overheating!" Matthew called, or screamed, out to Alfred. The sounds of metal clashing with metal rang through the now silent cock pit.

"Y-you dolt! Land the goddamned ship correctly!" The echo of Arthur's voice echoed, breaking the silence. Alfred could tell he got up to shout that into an intercom. The sentence seemed to hang in Alfred's ears longer than intended.

He drew a large breath and held it for a moment before releasing it, going back to the task at hand which, was far from anything that he wanted to do. In fact he wanted to cry for his mother and give up when he felt the accelerator jam and not let itself lower.

"Mattie! Strap down to something! Best get away from the engine!" He shouted and looked to the wall, his rosary swaying and jumping with the turbulence. Then he looked at the ground. It was close. Uncomfortably close. So close that it could have been equated to Ivan being within two feet of anyone that could breathe with a scalpel, or a butcher knife.

He reached for the beads on the wall, yanking them down with all his might, the string broke and sent the beads flying in every direction. He ignored this fact and held them firm in his grasp. The leather squeaking in a way that would normally make any grade school boy or Alfred himself giggle any other day.

It was a rare occasion in which Alfred found himself praying. It wasn't included in his normal to-do list, (which was hardly a to-do list since none of it ever got done unless he found it fun) it never made his to-do list. The only exception was the first time he ate Arthur's food and later that night thought a tape worm had entered his stomach.

"Okay... uh... God. Yeah, it'd be really sweet if you didn't kill us all. And I mean no one. I'm not trying to be funny or something. I don't want to die or kill someone. So if you could somehow work it out in your busy schedule... well that'd be awesome! Thanks." He said and threw the beads on the ground trying to handle the beast of landing.

What degree of an angle did he have to be at to crash and live? Was it 22? No, even he could remember that would probably kill him. 15? Yeah, 15 sounded good. But, how would he know when it was 15 degrees? Was there even something to tell him? He knew he needed to pay attention when he was told these things more often.

Alfred heard a yelp or two and numerous crashes (amongst the cursing that could only have come from Arthur), instantly deciding hard turns were not the best moves to make while gravity was an issue. Before he realized what he was doing his hand reached out for the microphone and what he called 'word vomit' began to sound out of the speakers.

"So guys… yeah, this doesn't look like it'll be our best day ever. But if you could just uh… take off your seat belts and hang on real tight that'd be sweet." He said stifling the nervous laughter while he unbuckled his own seat belt. "Show you I don't know how to fix these problems, boss." He whispered setting the microphone down anticipating the crash. The seconds turned into hours, until finally Alfred felt the jolt he knew would finally end the fall before he was knocked out of his chair, sliding across the floor and colliding against the wall.


End file.
